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Tag: executive orders

  • What’s included in Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s first 10 executive orders – WTOP News

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    Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger wasted no time during her first day in office, signing 10 executive orders Saturday, some aimed at boosting affordability.

    Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger speaks after being sworn into office at the Virginia State Capitol Jan. 17, 2026 in Richmond, Virginia. Spanberger is the first woman elected to the Commonwealth of Virginia’s highest office. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)(Getty Images/Win McNamee)

    Gov. Abigail Spanberger wasted no time during her first day in office, signing 10 executive orders Saturday at the Virginia State Capitol aimed at boosting affordability and steering the commonwealth away from former Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s policies on education, immigration, diversity and public safety.

    Like many Democrats nationwide, Spanberger seized on the affordability issue on the campaign trail, and three of her 10 executive orders centered around lowering costs for Virginians.

    One order directs all the state’s executive branch agencies to find ways to reduce living expenses; another establishes a task force to make health care spending more efficient and lower costs; the final affordability minded order mandates a review of housing regulation and permitting practices to encourage more development.

    “Whether it’s cutting red tape within the government or enacting policy that provides relief, we must address high housing costs, health care, child care and energy costs,” Spanberger said Saturday.

    Changes to the federal workforce have had a particularly significant impact in Northern Virginia, and that’s also something Spanberger addressed with her initial wave of executive action. With the stroke of a pen Saturday, she created the Economic Resiliency Task Force, which will coordinate a statewide response to federal cuts.

    “We need a full assessment of the federal funds that have been cut, delayed, reduced or potential projected impacts that we may see in the future, and we need recommendations for how we can mitigate the damage — current or future,” Spanberger said.

    Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, told WTOP Spanberger is carrying forward her positive momentum by getting to work quickly.

    “Spanberger won by a massive landslide, unlike Younkin’s very narrow victory,” Sabato said. “Fifteen and a half points is a pretty incredible victory, and it gives her a lot of capital to spend. And she’s going to spend it. She only has four years,” he said.

    Virginia governors are limited to one four-year term.

    Spanberger’s final order Saturday related to immigration enforcement, another response to President Donald Trump and his administration’s priorities. Her order rescinds executive action taken by former Gov. Glenn Youngkin that increased cooperation between local and state police and federal immigration enforcement authorities.

    Democrats nationwide have called for limiting cooperation and criticized the actions of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency whose officers have been deployed to major cities across the country and tasked with deporting immigrants who are in the country without legal permission.

    Congressional Democrats have also floated the idea of holding up funding for ICE.

    “Virginia state and local law enforcement officers must be able to focus on their rapport, responsibilities, investigating crime and community policing,” Spanberger said.

    Other orders were aimed at targeting discrimination, bolstering education and making sure her office can respond to crisis or emergency situations.

    The full text of each order is available here.

    “Executive orders represent just the beginning, first steps that we are taking to make a more affordable Virginia, a safer Virginia and one focused on ensuring that the future of all of our kids is bright,” Spanberger said.

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    © 2026 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.

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    Thomas Robertson

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  • Trump pushes a 1-year, 10% cap on credit card interest rates and banks balk

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    NEW YORK — Reviving a campaign pledge, President Donald Trump wants a one-year, 10% cap on credit card interest rates, a move that could save Americans tens of billions of dollars but drew immediate opposition from an industry that has been in his corner.

    Trump was not clear in his social media post Friday night whether a cap might take effect through executive action or legislation, though one Republican senator said he had spoken with the president and would work on a bill with his “full support.” Trump said he hoped it would be in place Jan. 20, one year after he took office.

    Strong opposition is certain from Wall Street and the credit card companies, which donated heavily to his 2024 campaign and to support his second-term agenda.

    “We will no longer let the American Public be ripped off by Credit Card Companies that are charging Interest Rates of 20 to 30%,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

    Researchers who studied Trump’s campaign pledge after it was first announced found that Americans would save roughly $100 billion in interest a year if credit card rates were capped at 10%. The same researchers found that while the credit card industry would take a major hit, it would still be profitable, although credit card rewards and other perks might be scaled back.

    Americans are paying, on average, between 19.65% and 21.5% in interest on credit cards according to the Federal Reserve and other industry tracking sources. That has come down in the past year as the central bank lowered benchmark rates, but is near the highs since federal regulators started tracking credit card rates in the mid-1990s.

    The Republican administration has proved particularly friendly until now to the credit card industry.

    Capital One got little resistance from the White House when it finalized its purchase and merger with Discover Financial in early 2025, a deal that created the nation’s largest credit card company. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is largely tasked with going after credit card companies for alleged wrongdoing, has been largely nonfunctional since Trump took office.

    In a joint statement, the banking industry was opposed to Trump’s proposal.

    “If enacted, this cap would only drive consumers toward less regulated, more costly alternatives,” the American Bankers Association and allied groups said.

    The White House did not respond to questions about how the president seeks to cap the rate or whether he has spoken with credit card companies about the idea.

    Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., who said he talked with Trump on Friday night, said the effort is meant to “lower costs for American families and to reign in greedy credit card companies who have been ripping off hardworking Americans for too long.”

    Legislation in both the House and the Senate would do what Trump is seeking.

    Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., released a plan in February that would immediately cap interest rates at 10% for five years, hoping to use Trump’s campaign promise to build momentum for their measure.

    Hours before Trump’s post, Sanders said that the president, rather than working to cap interest rates, had taken steps to deregulate big banks that allowed them to charge much higher credit card fees.

    Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., have proposed similar legislation. Ocasio-Cortez is a frequent political target of Trump, while Luna is a close ally of the president.

    ___

    Seung Min Kim reported from West Palm Beach, Fla.

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  • Is Trump’s Private-Equity Housing Ban a Bust?

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    Trump and Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman in 2017.
    Photo: Getty Images

    It’s not too often that Tucker Carlson, J.D. Vance, and Elizabeth Warren end up on the same side of an issue, but private equity’s intrusion into the housing market tends to have that effect on people across the political aisle. Since 2008, trillion-dollar-asset managers like Blackstone have been buying up single-family homes for their portfolios and raising rent on properties in fast-growing cities like Atlanta that cut young families out of homeownership. “If you want a revolution, keep that up,” Carlson has quipped, while Warren has said this practice “tanked the dream of homeownership.” To Vance, these firms “completely crowd out the availability for homes for people who want to just buy a piece of their community.”

    After nearly two decades of private equity in the single-family-housing market, our luxury-real-estate-licenser president is wading in. In a Truth Social post on Wednesday, President Trump said he would be “immediately taking steps” to ban large institutional investors like Blackstone and JPMorgan Chase from buying single-family homes. “People live in homes, not corporations,” he wrote.

    Donald Trump’s preview was vague, but he said he would provide more details on this affordability push in a couple of weeks at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where some parties in attendance probably will not be happy about the ban. (Companies with serious housing stock were totally blindsided by the news, and the stock prices of Blackstone and Invitation Homes — two of the biggest names in the sector — fell in the hours after the announcement by as much as 9 and 10 percent, respectively.)

    Even if Trump manages to prevent investment firms from buying up single-family houses, the affordable-housing crisis will not be fixed by executive order. As of 2023, large investors with 100 homes or more owned only 3 percent of the housing stock. And an order from Trump — or a law passed by Congress — would not initiate a sudden Maoist land reform in Las Vegas and Atlanta, the cities where private equity does have an outsize influence on housing.

    Additionally, while private equity has significantly changed the single-family-home rental market in these fast-growing cities, its current growth is not necessarily coming from expansion into purchases of suburban three-bedrooms. “The largest corporate owners are at saturation,” says Eric Seymour, a Rutgers associate professor who studies private equity in the housing market. “Some of the largest actors, like Invitation Homes and Blackstone, grew to scale in the aftermath of the foreclosure crisis when they are able to buy large numbers of homes at low costs. That window has closed.” In recent years, Seymour says, these companies still buy homes but mostly through acquisitions of smaller corporate landlords — or by investing in build-to-rent housing that, by definition, does not affect homeownership.

    “Prohibiting these companies from additional acquisitions of single-family housing is not going to lead to the housing outcomes people are desiring,” Seymour says. “The demand is coming from other channels. And we have a deeply constrained housing supply nationally.”

    Suzanne Lanyi Charles, an associate professor at Cornell, agrees: “This is not going to have a huge effect on house prices.” But she notes that restrictions on massive landlords could “combat negative effects on tenants — whether they can renew leases or are locked out of certain homes.” And that the outsize focus on institutional firms that control a single-digit percentage of the national single-family-housing stock still makes sense. “When someone goes out to buy a house and there are multiple bidders, then a company with an advantage can come in and pay in cash and waive an inspection, that’s infuriating,” she says.

    If Trump has embraced affordability messaging here, its not quite to the extent of the abundance agenda popularized by centrist Democrats last year. In December, he said building new housing — the most obvious fix to the affordability problem — could be a problem for current homeowners, be they Blackstone or Family Stone, because it could cause the value of their homes to decrease. “I don’t want to knock those numbers down because I want them to continue to have a big value for their house,” Trump said.

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    Matt Stieb

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  • Trump signs executive order for AI project called Genesis Mission to boost scientific discoveries

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    President Donald Trump is directing the federal government to combine efforts with tech companies and universities to convert government data into scientific discoveries, acting on his push to make artificial intelligence the engine of the nation’s economic future.

    Trump unveiled the “Genesis Mission” as part of an executive order he signed Monday that directs the Department of Energy and national labs to build a digital platform to concentrate the nation’s scientific data in one place.

    It solicits private sector and university partners to use their AI capability to help the government solve engineering, energy and national security problems, including streamlining the nation’s electric grid, according to White House officials who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity to describe the order before it was signed. Officials made no specific mention of seeking medical advances as part of the project.

    “The Genesis Mission will bring together our Nation’s research and development resources — combining the efforts of brilliant American scientists, including those at our national laboratories, with pioneering American businesses; world-renowned universities; and existing research infrastructure, data repositories, production plants, and national security sites — to achieve dramatic acceleration in AI development and utilization,” the executive order says.

    The administration portrayed the effort as the government’s most ambitious marshaling of federal scientific resources since the Apollo space missions of the late 1960s and early 1970s, even as it had cut billions of dollars in federal funding for scientific research and thousands of scientists had lost their jobs and funding.

    Trump is increasingly counting on the tech sector and the development of AI to power the U.S. economy, made clear last week as he hosted Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The monarch has committed to investing $1 trillion, largely from the Arab nation’s oil and natural gas reserves, to pivot his nation into becoming an AI data hub.

    For the U.S.’s part, funding was appropriated to the Energy Department as part of the massive tax-break and spending bill signed into law by Trump in July, White House officials said.

    As AI raises concerns that its heavy use of electricity may be contributing to higher utility rates in the nearer term, which is a political risk for Trump, administration officials argued that rates will come down as the technology develops. They said the increased demand will build capacity in existing transmission lines and bring down costs per unit of electricity.

    Data centers needed to fuel AI accounted for about 1.5% of the world’s electricity consumption last year, and those facilities’ energy consumption is predicted to more than double by 2030, according to the International Energy Agency. That increase could lead to burning more fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas, which release greenhouse gases that contribute to warming temperatures, sea level rise and extreme weather.

    The project will rely on national labs’ supercomputers but will also use supercomputing capacity being developed in the private sector. The project’s use of public data including national security information along with private sector supercomputers prompted officials to issue assurances that there would be controls to respect protected information.

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  • Trump Signs Executive Order for AI Project Called Genesis Mission to Boost Scientific Discoveries

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    President Donald Trump is directing the federal government to combine efforts with tech companies and universities to convert government data into scientific discoveries, acting on his push to make artificial intelligence the engine of the nation’s economic future.

    Trump unveiled the “Genesis Mission” as part of an executive order he signed Monday that directs the Department of Energy and national labs to build a digital platform to concentrate the nation’s scientific data in one place.

    It solicits private sector and university partners to use their AI capability to help the government solve engineering, energy and national security problems, including streamlining the nation’s electric grid, according to White House officials who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity to describe the order before it was signed. Officials made no specific mention of seeking medical advances as part of the project.

    “The Genesis Mission will bring together our Nation’s research and development resources — combining the efforts of brilliant American scientists, including those at our national laboratories, with pioneering American businesses; world-renowned universities; and existing research infrastructure, data repositories, production plants, and national security sites — to achieve dramatic acceleration in AI development and utilization,” the executive order says.

    Trump is increasingly counting on the tech sector and the development of AI to power the U.S. economy, made clear last week as he hosted Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The monarch has committed to investing $1 trillion, largely from the Arab nation’s oil and natural gas reserves, to pivot his nation into becoming an AI data hub.

    For the U.S.’s part, funding was appropriated to the Energy Department as part of the massive tax-break and spending bill signed into law by Trump in July, White House officials said.

    As AI raises concerns that its heavy use of electricity may be contributing to higher utility rates in the nearer term, which is a political risk for Trump, administration officials argued that rates will come down as the technology develops. They said the increased demand will build capacity in existing transmission lines and bring down costs per unit of electricity.

    Data centers needed to fuel AI accounted for about 1.5% of the world’s electricity consumption last year, and those facilities’ energy consumption is predicted to more than double by 2030, according to the International Energy Agency. That increase could lead to burning more fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas, which release greenhouse gases that contribute to warming temperatures, sea level rise and extreme weather.

    The project will rely on national labs’ supercomputers but will also use supercomputing capacity being developed in the private sector. The project’s use of public data including national security information along with private sector supercomputers prompted officials to issue assurances that there would be controls to respect protected information.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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    Associated Press

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  • The Liberal Scholars Who Influenced Trump’s Attack on Birthright Citizenship

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    The amendment was debated in the Senate in 1866, as the Reconstruction Congress attempted to suture the nation together after the Civil War and secure rights for freed slaves. At that time, discussion of the Citizenship Clause mostly focussed on the question of Native Americans on tribal lands within U.S. territory. The words “subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” Lyman Trumbull, a senator from Illinois, explained, prevented members of those tribes from receiving birthright citizenship, since they were beyond the nation’s “complete jurisdiction.” (Two other groups were similarly excluded: children born to foreign diplomats and those born to a hostile occupying force.)

    To Schuck and Smith, that conclusion was revelatory. The phrase “subject to the jurisdiction” must mean more than the mere accident of birth. It seemed to denote a mutual compact—people whose sole allegiance was to the U.S., and who were intentionally accepted by the government. Given that the phenomenon of illegal immigration didn’t exist when the Fourteenth Amendment was drafted, they reasoned, the clause simply didn’t apply to children born on U.S. soil whose parents had come here “without consent.” Nor did the prevailing Supreme Court precedent, U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), seem to address them, since it concerned a man whose parents were legal immigrants. Schuck and Smith concluded that Congress could limit future birthright citizenship to the offspring of citizens and permanent residents—a notion that “has to our knowledge never been seriously considered.” Smith told me he didn’t believe Congress should do this, only that it could. “We thought it was provocative,” he said.

    Various academic peers deemed their novel reading “seriously flawed,” “simply puzzling,” and “morally incoherent.” “People were shocked,” recalled the Harvard immigration scholar Gerald Neuman. “The settled understanding had been settled for so long.” Undocumented immigrants, critics pointed out in a flurry of law-review essays, were obviously bound by the U.S. legal system. Trumbull had been speaking of Native Americans on the frontier or on reservations that largely operated as quasi-foreign states under treaties with Washington. Like foreign diplomats and their families, they couldn’t be sued or prosecuted in federal court. (Native Americans wouldn’t be granted citizenship until 1924.)

    Some of the book’s arguments, Neuman said, “are just made in ignorance of history.” Immigration was not entirely unregulated, he pointed out, before the Fourteenth Amendment was written. States barred the entry of “paupers” and the “infirm”; Southern legislatures prohibited the entry of free Black people. In 1803, Congress made it a federal offense to bring any “people of color” into the country, to prevent an influx of free Black immigrants fleeing the Haitian revolution.

    The amendment’s opponents were also acutely aware that it would extend citizenship to the children of immigrants they did not want to let in. Edgar Cowan, a Republican senator from Pennsylvania, warned of an invasion of “gypsies” who “pay no taxes; who never perform military service; who do nothing, in fact, which becomes the citizen, and perform none of the duties which devolve upon him, but, on the other hand, have no homes, pretend to own no land, live nowhere, settle as trespassers wherever they go.” He also feared “a flood of immigration of the Mongol race,” demanding, “Is the child of the Chinese immigrant in California a citizen?” Although Chinese immigrants were then barred from naturalizing, the response from the California senator John Conness, another Republican, was unequivocal: U.S.-born children “of all parentage whatever” would be citizens. With these possibilities in plain view, the amendment was ratified in 1868.

    Above all, legal experts concluded, Schuck and Smith had misconstrued the Fourteenth Amendment’s purpose. The Constitution barely mentioned citizenship, in part because disagreements over slavery made it impossible to agree on a definition. In the Dred Scott case, of 1857, the Supreme Court supplied one, ruling that no person of African descent, free or enslaved, could be an American citizen. The Fourteenth Amendment’s authors sought to establish an expansive, titanium-clad definition of citizenship that couldn’t be dismantled by the courts, Congress, or the President. In a blistering review of “Citizenship Without Consent” titled “Back to Dred Scott?” Neuman concluded that Schuck and Smith had, at best, “identified a strategy by which a court, determined to deny citizenship to American-born children of undocumented aliens, could justify such a holding.”

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    Rachel Morris

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  • Va.’s governor-elect tells WTOP first executive orders will focus on affordability – WTOP News

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    In a one-on-one interview with WTOP’s Nick Iannelli, Virginia Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger is laying out what she plans to accomplish during her first days as governor.

    Virginia Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger has already made history in the Commonwealth, without even taking office, and in a one-on-one interview with WTOP’s Nick Iannelli, she’s laying out what she plans to accomplish during her first days in the governor’s mansion.

    In defeating Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, Spanberger became the first woman in the state to be elected governor.

    Her victory led a blue wave in Virginia, in which Democrats won in races for lieutenant governor and attorney general, and flipped 13 seats in the House of Delegates, giving them a super majority.

    That should make it much easier for Spanberger to implement her policies, and WTOP is learning more about what’s at the top of her list.

    The audio below has been edited for broadcast on WTOP.

    WTOP’s Nick Iannelli speaks to Virginia Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger about her day one priorities.

    Read the full interview below.

    The transcript below has been lightly edited for clarity.

    • Nick Iannelli:

      So let’s talk about day one priorities. When it was day one for Gov. Youngkin, he had a stack of executive orders to fast track his priorities and to reverse some of his predecessor’s policies.

      So on day one, is your day one going to look like that? Do you have a stack of executive orders and do you plan to do away with any of Youngkin’s policies?

    • Abigail Spanberger:

      Well, I am building out my day one stack. So, at this point in time, I am working on building out the day one priorities that I’ll be pursuing, certainly in concert with the General Assembly. I’ll need my partners in the legislative branch to be pursuing the legislation that I want to sign into law next year.

      And then I am also working on developing the executive orders that I will push out. What I can tell you is, I am working on building out a plan to best use the executive authority to ensure that we are delivering results for Virginia families, as it relates to contending with high costs and overall issues of affordability, particularly in housing and health care and in energy.

      There are some real unique challenges that so many Virginians are facing, certainly at this moment, because of the ongoing impacts of policies out of Washington, but also, of course, because of this ongoing shutdown. So we’re working on building out those executive orders that I will sign on the first day, but they will all be focused on issues of affordability.

    • Nick Iannelli:

      Do you plan on doing away with any of Youngkin’s policies, though? For example, Youngkin has been big on Virginia cooperating with federal immigration authorities. Do you plan on doing away with that, scrapping those priorities?

    • Abigail Spanberger:

      I have been clear on the fact that the executive order, I believe it’s 47, that he put out, mandating cooperation on immigration administrative action is something that I would change, and so that is something that I’ve been very clear on.

      Though, notably as a former law enforcement officer, cooperation between local, state and federal agencies is important when there is a warrant, and certainly when there is any sort of criminal offense. As a former law enforcement officer, I worked on many of those types of joint cases.

      So ultimately, that executive order that he put out is something that I’ve been quite clear that I would change.

    • Nick Iannelli:

      How about when it comes to Virginia’s relationship with the Trump administration? That is obviously going to change as Virginia is going to be completely controlled by Democrats now.

      Do you have any ideas in terms of taking legal action against the Trump administration? There was speculation that Virginia might do that if you won.

    • Abigail Spanberger:

      Well, I think certainly, as we have seen attacks on our federal employees, as we have seen the DOGE efforts come through, time and time and time again right now, with the efforts to take SNAP dollars away that were previously funded dollars allocated and legally should be distributed — the Trump administration’s choice to hold those dollars, that is something that’s been continually met with legal challenge. There have been states across the country that have challenged these actions and, unfortunately, Virginia has previously not joined in any of those efforts.

      So when it comes to anything that is defending the rights, the jobs, the livelihoods of Virginians that may be under attack by the Trump administration, then, generally speaking, that’s an area where I think people need to take an action. When we have seen states across the country taking action, joining together, pushing back on some of these efforts from the Trump administration, and unfortunately, Virginia has yet to join those efforts.

      So that is absolutely something that people should expect. But alternatively, in the new year, where there are areas where I can be an advocate for Virginia and work with this administration, I’ll endeavor to find those places, but certainly at a moment right now, the priority that I maintain is for the president to pull people into a room and to demonstrate the leadership necessary to end this government shutdown.

      And that is my top priority, my top request of the president, and frankly, my top request of all members of congressional leadership.

    • Nick Iannelli:

      So the day after the election, we heard from Gov. Youngkin, and he said that he remains concerned about Jay Jones, your attorney general-elect, saying that he believes Jones can’t do the job properly with all of the scrutiny surrounding the text message scandal.

      Do you have any concerns about Jones being able to do that job with all of that hanging over him, and to do his job without it becoming a big distraction?

    • Abigail Spanberger:

      So I think there’s two things here. Certainly Virginians have made their voices heard in electing Jay, and I trust the people of Virginia. I think ultimately, Virginians deserve and need leaders who are not afraid to stand up for Virginia, particularly when the Trump administration continues to attack our citizens, their livelihoods, our economy, threatens the health care of hundreds of thousands of Virginians.

      But I also think, and not to speak for him, but I do believe that Attorney General-elect Jones is aware that he has to demonstrate that he is going to do an excellent job that he certainly, along the campaign trail, made clear that he regretted the comments that he made. He apologized for them. And I think that now he has both the obligation and the mandate to demonstrate that his commitment is to the law. His commitment is to the people of Virginia, upholding and protecting our communities. And that’s what I expect him to do and endeavor to do every single day.

    • Nick Iannelli:

      As far as the redistricting efforts are concerned, that lawmakers just launched a week ago. As governor, when you take office, are you going to encourage those efforts, or will you be critical of them?

    • Abigail Spanberger:

      I think it’s important to note that the governor doesn’t necessarily play a role in this. So this is a General Assembly action that the General Assembly has taken. Ultimately, it would require a constitutional amendment in order to be able to do any type of redistricting, which is General Assembly votes, which they’ve already done once, they will vote again.

    • Nick Iannelli:

      But you would certainly have a lot of influence, though, as governor.

    • Abigail Spanberger:

      That’s when it would go to the people. Really what I am focused on in looking at and in conversations with the General Assembly, is the timeline, in terms of the pace at which this could or couldn’t get done, that pace at which it could or couldn’t get in front of the people for the people of Virginia to vote on.

      And I want to make sure that we have ample time to ensure that candidates who are running for those congressional seats have the ability to file their candidacies and run. And so, for me, looking toward what it is that the General Assembly is pursuing, the timing and the calendar of it matters now.

      As an issue of competitiveness, I would note that in my governor’s race, I won two of the congressional districts that are going to be highly contested in 2026. Certainly, there are many reasons why we here in Virginia might pursue redistricting, but notably, there are two seats, from a Democratic perspective, that are imminently winnable, because I just won them, and so I look forward to continuing the conversations.

      I think it was prudent for the General Assembly to keep its options open by passing what was a requirement, frankly, of being able to do it before the actual Election Day. I think it was prudent for the General Assembly to take that action, and now it becomes a question of timing, moving forward toward 2026 or 2028.

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    © 2025 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.

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    Thomas Robertson

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  • Texas Freezes Program to Help Minority-Owned Businesses Compete for State Contracts

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    The state program intended to give additional exposure to businesses owned by women, minorities and disabled veterans seeking state contracts was frozen by the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts’ office this week, the latest instance of Republican state officials targeting a program perceived as promoting diversity, equity and inclusion.

    Information regarding the Historically Underutilized Business program was removed from the comptroller’s website and the office said it was pausing the issuance of all new and renewed certifications for state procurement, according to a statement by the comptroller’s office.

    The office said it was freezing the program to allow for a review to ensure it is constitutional and complies with Gov. Greg Abbott’s January executive order banning DEI programs from state agencies.

    “Businesses deserve a level playing field where government contracts are earned by performance and best value — not race or sex quotas,” acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock wrote on social media Tuesday. “We must END ALL DEI in Texas!”

    Hancock’s social media posts were coupled with a memo to state agencies and universities saying they are prohibited from granting contracts on the basis of race, ethnicity or sex.

    While his office has stopped issuing new certifications, Hancock does not have the power to end the program altogether.

    The program, in its current form, was written into state law over the course of several legislative sessions during the 1990s. Doing away with the program would require either a court ruling it unconstitutional or the Legislature repealing the law.

    State Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, co-authored the 1999 bill that codified the program into state law and said its opponents misunderstand the program’s intent and effectiveness.

    “The program is not a quota program,” West said Thursday. “This program was passed when (George) W. Bush was governor of Texas, and he was not a governor that would have accepted a quota program. We were able to strike what we thought was a good compromise, a fair program that made sure agencies would go out and make an effort to seek procurement opportunities.

    “All it does is create opportunities for smaller, disadvantaged businesses to be part of the procurement network for the state of Texas,” West added.

    That legislation placed the program under the purview of the comptroller’s office, which is tasked with certifying HUB businesses and monitoring other state agencies for compliance in their procurement processes. A business can be certified under the program if a majority of its ownership is determined to be an “economically disadvantaged person,” defined by the state as Black Americans, Hispanic Americans, women, Asian Pacific Americans, Native Americans and disabled veterans.

    The law sets requirements for state agencies to solicit bids from a set number of HUB-certified businesses, but does not require that a HUB-certified business must be selected for a given contract.

    The law also set statewide goals for HUB participation in state contracts based on the 2009 State of Texas Disparity Study. That study was also removed from the comptroller’s office on Tuesday.

    Michael Adams, a professor and director of the Master of Public Affairs Graduate Program at Texas Southern University, said programs seeking to increase the participation of women and minority-owned businesses in the public procurement process are present in all levels of government across the country.

    With government representation of minorities still lagging behind their population, programs like Texas’ HUB program were seen as a way of helping historically disenfranchised groups by taking advantage of government’s status as the nation’s largest employer to fight discrimination, Adams said.

    “How do you move beyond the public welfare state if you don’t have the opportunity to strike out and create a business and create opportunity for yourself?” Adams said. “In terms of policy outputs, the HUBs have been a way of doing that.”

    West said the program has not been a political issue throughout most of its existence, arguing the recent attention is a result of Republican attempts during President Donald Trump’s second term to roll back decades of progress toward societal equity.

    “It’s all part of the Project 2025 plan,” West said, referencing an ultra-conservative political initiative published by Heritage Foundation in preparation for Trump’s second term. “Many of the cultural wars in America start in Texas … Now we’re trying to further Trump’s goals to do away with any programs that give people a hand up, not a hand down.”

    West noted that women-owned businesses are by far the biggest benefactor of the HUB program, “but the focus by Republicans has been on the poster child, which are African American owned businesses.”

    Hancock took office in July in an acting role after former Comptroller Glen Hegar was named chancellor of the Texas A&M University System. Hancock said the review of the program has been a top priority since he took office.

    The decision comes after Austin-based recruiting company Aerospace Solutions sued the state last November arguing the HUB program puts it at a disadvantage when bidding for state contracts because it is not a HUB-certified company.

    This story was originally published by The Texas Tribune and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • Ex-Amazon driver sues civil rights agency for dropping her case following Trump’s executive order

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    NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — A former Amazon delivery driver has filed a lawsuit accusing a federal civil right agency of abruptly and unlawfully abandoning her sex discrimination case and others like it following an executive order from President Donald Trump.

    The lawsuit filed by the former Colorado driver demands that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission resume investigating her claims that Amazon discriminates against female drivers by failing to provide adequate bathroom breaks.

    The lawsuit is the latest example of workers and others scrambling to find recourse as federal agencies abandon their cases in response to Trump’s shake-up of the country’s civil rights enforcement infrastructure.

    The EEOC, which enforces civil rights laws in the workplace, decided last month to discharge any complaints based on “disparate impact liability,” which holds that policies that are neutral on their face can be discriminatory if they impose unnecessary barriers that disadvantage different demographic groups.

    The EEOC’s decision came in response to an executive order in April directing federal agencies to deprioritize the use of disparate impact liability. The Trump administration argues that disparate impact assumes any racial or gender imbalance in workplaces is the result of discrimination and leads to practices that undermine meritocracy.

    The former driver, Leah Cross, filed a motion Tuesday asking the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to stay the EEOC’s new rule prohibiting investigations and enjoin the agency from enforcing it.

    The EEOC has already dropped its sole lawsuit arising from a disparate impact liability charge, a case alleging that the Sheetz convenience store chain’s background check practices discriminated against Black, Native American and multiracial job applicants.

    Separately, the agency has dropped lawsuits on behalf of transgender workers and subjected new complaints to a higher level of scrutiny, following Trump’s executive order declaring that the government would only recognize two unchangeable sexes.

    It’s unclear how many worker complaints involving disparate impact liability or LGBTQ+ workers have been sidelined by the EEOC. In her lawsuit, Cross demanded that the EEOC, which handled more than 88,000 discrimination charges in 2024, give the court a list of the disparate impact liability charges it has shut down.

    The EEOC referred questions about the lawsuit to the Department of Justice, which declined to comment.

    Cross, who worked as a driver from August to November 2022, filed her EEOC charge two years ago, arguing that the company’s delivery schedules make it nearly impossible for drivers to find time to use bathrooms. An EEOC investigator told her lawyers last month it was closing her case because of the disparate impact rule, according to the lawsuit.

    Amazon declined to comment on Cross’ case but referred The AP to its policies around its drivers, who deliver packages in Amazon-branded vehicles but work indirectly for the company through third-party companies called Delivery Service Partners. Amazon says its technology builds routes that ensure time for two 15-minute rest breaks and a 30-minute meal break. The company also said its Amazon Delivery app provides a list for drivers to see nearby restroom facilities and gas stations.

    But in an interview with The AP, Cross said it was so hard for to her stop for breaks that she had to pack a Shewee — a portable urination device for women — as well as a change of pants “in case I ended up accidentally urinating on myself.”

    Cross’ lawsuit against the EEOC argues that the agency is legally obligated to investigate all charges based on disparate impact liability, which Congress codified in the 1991 Civil Rights Act.

    The EEOC “isn’t allowed to throw away an entire category of charges without looking into their facts just because the president doesn’t like the type of discrimination those charges are based on,” said Karla Gilbride, an attorney at Public Citizen Litigation Group, one of the organizations that filed the lawsuit.

    Gilbride was the EEOC’s general counsel until she was fired in January along with two Democratic commissioners in a purge that cleared the way for the Trump administration to root out diversity and inclusion programs, roll back protections for transgender workers and elevate religious rights. ________

    The Associated Press’ women in the workforce and state government coverage receives financial support from Pivotal Ventures. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • AstraZeneca Agrees to Lower Drug Prices for Medicaid Under Trump Administration Deal

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — AstraZeneca on Friday became the second major pharmaceutical manufacturer to announce it had agreed to lower the cost of prescription drugs for Medicaid under a deal struck with the Trump administration that avoided its threats of steep tariffs.

    President Donald Trump made the announcement in the Oval Office with AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot, who said that during tough negotiations to reach a deal, Trump and his team of officials had “really kept me up at night.”

    Under the agreement, AstraZeneca will charge most-favored-nation pricing to Medicaid, while guaranteeing such pricing on newly launched drugs, Trump said. That involves matching the lowest price offered in other developed nations.

    “For many years, Americans have paid the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, by far,” Trump said, adding that the new deal may cut prices to “the lowest price anywhere in the world. That’s what we get.”

    AstraZeneca’s deal follows a similar agreement Pfizer announced late last month. Advocates have generally praised the administration’s efforts to cut drug prices, though some have expressed concerns that too much onus is being placed on the manufacturers to lower costs without implementing U.S. policy safeguards to ensure such outcomes.

    Both agreements, however, build on an executive order Trump signed in May that set a deadline for drugmakers to electively lower prices or face new limits on what the government will pay. Trump had suggested that a series of deals with drug companies would subsequently be coming.

    “The tariffs were a big reason he came here,” Trump said of Soriot.

    Cambridge, United Kingdom-based AstraZeneca makes a range of cancer treatments. Its products include the lung cancer drug Tagrisso; Lynparza, an oral treatment for ovarian cancer, and Calquence, which treats chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

    Those drugs brought in a total of more than $7.5 billion in U.S. sales last year.

    AstraZeneca announced Thursday that it would spend $4.5 billion on a new manufacturing plant near Charlottesville, Virginia, and its Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, spoke during Friday’s Oval Office announcement to cheer groundbreaking on the new facility.

    The drugmaker said that project was the centerpiece of $50 billion in investments the company plans to make in the U.S. by 2030.

    AstraZeneca said it plans to reach $80 billion in total revenue by then, half of which will be generated in the United States.

    Trump predicted the investment’s could lead to 3,600 jobs domestically “just to begin with.”

    One of the AstraZeneca drugs was already subject to price reductions due to a Medicare negotiating strategy implemented under President Biden. Still, Trump insisted that Democrats shouldn’t “get credit” and suggested the party’s key leaders may try.

    The announcements came months after AstraZeneca said it was scrapping plans to expand a vaccine manufacturing plant in its home country. The company blamed several factors, including reduced government financial support.

    The Trump administration has put up a landing page for its new website, TrumpRX.gov, where people will be able to buy drugs directly from manufacturers, according to officials. Both Pfizer and AstraZeneca will offer medications through the site, according to the administration.

    The website’s landing page features two very large pictures of Trump and a promise that the site is “Coming Soon” in January 2026.

    It says at the bottom of the page that the site was “Designed in DC by The National Design Studio,” the new government website design hub that Trump created by executive order in August, which is being led by Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia.

    Associated Press writers Tom Murphy and Michelle L. Price contributed to this report.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

    Photos You Should See – Oct. 2025

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  • Trump signs order to put TikTok under US ownership

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday that he says will allow TikTok to continue operating in the United States in a way that meets national security concerns.

    Trump’s order will enable an American-led of group of investors to buy the app from China’s ByteDance, though the deal is not yet finalized and also requires China’s approval.


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  • NYC mayor throws support behind bill to ban Central Park horse carriages

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    NEW YORK — New York City’s mayor threw his support Wednesday behind a proposal to end the horse-drawn carriages that have been fixtures in Central Park for more than 150 years as he ordered police to more stringently enforce laws already on the books to rein in the industry.

    Mayor Eric Adams, in joining supporters of a ban, cited safety concerns in the increasingly crowded green space, including incidents in recent years of horses collapsing and dying on the job or breaking free from their drivers and running loose in the park.

    “While horse-drawn carriages have long been an iconic fixture of Central Park, they are increasingly incompatible with the conditions of a modern, heavily-used urban green space,” he said in a statement. “It has become abundantly clear that these horse-drawn carriages no longer work for our city.”

    The Democrat, who faces a steep climb in his bid for reelection as an independent, said he sent the City Council a “letter of necessity” giving lawmakers the authority to expedite passage of a bill phasing out horse-drawn carriages.

    Adams also issued an executive order that, among other things, orders police to “prioritize enforcement” against horse-drawn carriages operating outside their legally designated areas to illegally solicit fares or impede traffic.

    In addition, the mayor’s order directs city agencies to identify new employment opportunities for industry workers and to create a process for the voluntary return of carriage licenses.

    “This is not about eliminating this tradition — it’s about honoring our traditions in a way that aligns with who we are today,” Adams said. “New Yorkers care deeply about animals, about fairness, and about doing what’s right.”

    John Samuelsen, president of the Transport Workers Union of America, which represents horse carriage workers, dismissed the announcement as a “desperation act” by a mayor badly lagging his campaign rivals, including Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa.

    “He’s betrayed the blue collar New Yorkers who were relying on him to stand up for their jobs against the real estate developers who want to kill the industry solely to develop those stables into skyscrapers,” Samuelsen said. “He should be ashamed of himself.”

    Animal rights groups, which have long called for ending the industry over concerns about the health and welfare of the horses, applauded the announcement.

    “This is a life-saving step for both people and horses, and it makes clear what we and so many New Yorkers have long said: horse-drawn carriages have no place in our city any longer,” said Edita Birnkrant, executive director of New Yorkers for Clean, Livable, and Safe Streets, or NYCLASS.

    The mayor is the latest notable voice to weigh in on the long-running debate, but he certainly isn’t the first mayor to call for an end to the carriage industry.

    Adams’ predecessor, former Mayor Bill de Blasio, vowed to shut down the industry “on day one,” only to come up against years of council opposition and even the ire of actor Liam Neeson, who remains an outspoken supporter of the industry.

    “It really is time to get this done,” the onetime Democratic presidential hopeful remarked in a post on X that included Adams’ announcement.

    The influential Central Park Conservancy, the nonprofit that manages the park, meanwhile, announced in August that it also was backing calls for a ban, citing safety concerns.

    Council Speaker Adrienne Adams hasn’t said whether the proposed ban would be heard, let alone put to a vote this session. Spokespersons for the Democrat, who is not related to the mayor, didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

    ___

    Follow Philip Marcelo at https://x.com/philmarcelo

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  • Trump extends TikTok shutdown deadline for fourth time after reaching framework deal with China

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    WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump formally extended the deadline to keep the social media app TikTok available in the United States until Dec. 16, giving time to complete the framework of the deal announced Monday after talks between American and Chinese government officials.

    The executive order signed on Tuesday by Trump was the fourth time he has bypassed federal law to prolong the deadline for the China-associated TikTok to sell its assets to an American company or face a ban. The original deadline set by Congress was Jan. 19 of this year, a day before Trump took the oath of office for his second term.

    Trump was asked Tuesday about the framework deal he announced a day earlier and repeated that he would discuss TikTok with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday. He has said there are companies that want to buy the social media app owned by ByteDance and that details about its potential suitors would be announced soon.

    “I hate to see value like that thrown out the window,” Trump said as he departed the White House, with his wife, first lady Melania Trump, for a state visit to the United Kingdom.

    The framework came out of a meeting in Madrid that concluded Monday between U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, among other officials.

    Bessent told reporters that the goal was to switch TikTok’s assets to U.S. ownership for its operations in America, though he declined to discuss the details of the framework.

    Li Chenggang, China’s international trade representative, told reporters the sides have reached “basic framework consensus” to cooperatively resolve TikTok-related issues, reduce investment barriers and promote related economic and trade cooperation.

    The U.S. president warmed to TikTok and the prospect of keeping it alive under the belief that it helped him to win younger voters in the 2024 presidential election. Still, the law mandating its sale in the U.S. was premised on the possible security risks the app poses in its collection of data.

    The prolonged negotiations between the U.S. and China over TikTok might ultimately mean little as its novelty has “slowly faded,” said Syracuse University political science professor Dimitar Gueorguiev in a statement.

    “The U.S.–China deal on TikTok may look like a breakthrough, but it risks being a Pyrrhic victory,” Gueorguiev said. “Its famous algorithm, once seen as uniquely powerful, has lost much of its mystique—copycat efforts show that the secret was not the code itself but TikTok’s early-mover advantage and network effects. Any U.S. buyer is therefore purchasing market share and user base, not transformative technology.”

    ___

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  • Trump celebrates West Point alumni group canceling award ceremony to honor Tom Hanks

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    WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump celebrated news on Monday that an alumni group from West Point canceled an award ceremony set to honor Tom Hanks, with the president calling the famous actor “destructive” and “WOKE.”

    Hanks was scheduled to receive the 2025 Sylvanus Thayer Award on Sept. 25, but the U.S. Military Academy’s alumni association canceled the ceremony last week, according to news reports.

    “Important move!” Trump said in a post on his social media network Monday. “We don’t need destructive, WOKE recipients getting our cherished American Awards!!! Hopefully the Academy Awards, and other Fake Award Shows, will review their Standards and Practices in the name of Fairness and Justice.”

    West Point, its alumni association and a representative for Hanks did not immediately respond to messages and calls seeking comment Monday.

    It comes as Trump has moved to direct the ideology and leadership of higher education institutes and the military in his second term, seeking to assert control with a mix of executive orders and threats of legal action and withholding funds.

    This summer, the Army secretary directed West Point to review its hiring practices, bar outside groups from choosing employees and remove a newly announced hire who led the nation’s cybersecurity agency under then-President Joe Biden.

    Earlier this year, West Point disbanded a dozen cadet clubs centered on ethnicity, gender, race and sexuality in response to the Trump administration’s push to eliminate diversity programs throughout government. The school also rehung a painting of Gen. Robert E. Lee dressed in his Confederate uniform in the library as the Trump administration has pushed to restore Confederate names and monuments that have been removed in recent years.

    The Sylvanus Thayer Award award is named for an early superintendent of the military academy who is known as the “Father of West Point.” It has been given out every year since 1958 “to an outstanding citizen of the United States whose service and accomplishments in the national interest exemplify personal devotion to the ideals expressed in West Point’s motto: ‘Duty, Honor, Country,’” according to the West Point Association of Graduates.

    “Tom Hanks has done more for the positive portrayal of the American service member, more for the caring of the American veteran, their caregivers and their family, and more for the American space program and all branches of government than many other Americans,” association board chairman Robert McDonald said in a June press release about the award.

    Retired Army Col. Mark Bieger, president and chief executive officer of the association, wrote in an email Friday that the decision to call off the award ceremony “allows the Academy to continue its focus on its core mission of preparing cadets to lead, fight, and win as officers in the world’s most lethal force, the United States Army,” according to The Washington Post, which was first to report on the cancellation.

    Last year’s recipient was former President Barack Obama.

    Hanks is among Hollywood’s most politically active celebrities, donating to support a slew of Democratic politicians and progressive causes. He vocally endorsed Obama, Hillary Clinton and Biden in their presidential bids and signed an open letter endorsing Kamala Harris last year.

    He’s also gone to work for the Democrats. In 2012, he narrated a short documentary, “The Road We’ve Traveled,” for Obama’s reelection campaign.

    To fete Biden’s inauguration in 2021, Hanks hosted a 90-minute prime-time television special, “Celebrating America.”

    A year later, he narrated a two-minute ad spot from the Biden Inaugural Committee touting the accomplishments of the president’s first term. He also served as a celebrity co-chair for When We All Vote, a nonpartisan civic engagement organization founded by former first lady Michelle Obama to boost voter outreach.

    And for the better part of the past decade, Hanks has made no secret of his disapproval of Trump and the president’s policies. He called the then-Republican candidate a “self-involved gasbag” during an on-stage interview in 2016. After Trump took office, Hanks said during an American Civil Liberties Union fundraiser that actions like the attempted travel ban for Muslim-majority countries represented a “brand of tragedy.”

    During Biden’s inauguration, he spoke of “deep divisions and a troubling rancor in our land” and warned against attempts to twist the truth by those entrusted with public service during a 2023 Harvard commencement speech. Just this past year, he stoked the ire of Trump supporters after depicting a caricature of one during the 50th anniversary special of “Saturday Night Live.”

    ___

    Associated Press writers Konstantin Toropin in Washington and Jocelyn Noveck and Mallika Sen in New York contributed to this report.

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  • Trump threatens Chicago with apocalyptic force and Pritzker calls him a ‘wannabe dictator’

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    WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Saturday amplified his promises to send National Guard troops and immigration agents to Chicago by posting a parody image from “Apocalypse Now” featuring a ball of flames as helicopters zoom over the nation’s third-largest city.

    “’I love the smell of deportations in the morning,’” Trump wrote on his social media site. “Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.”

    The president offered no details beyond the label “Chipocalypse Now,” a play on the title of Francis Ford Coppola’s dystopian 1979 film set in the Vietnam war, in which a character says: “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”

    In response to the post, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, called Trump a “wannabe dictator.”

    Trump on Friday signed an executive order seeking to rename the Defense Department the Department of War, after months of campaigning to be considered for the Nobel Peace Prize. The renaming requires congressional approval.

    The illustration in Trump’s post shows him against a backdrop of the Chicago skyline, wearing a hat matching that of the movie’s war-loving and amoral Lt. Col. Kilgore, played by Robert Duvall.

    Trump’s weekend post follows his repeated threats to add Chicago to the list of other Democratic-led cities he’s targeted for expanded federal enforcement. His administration is set to step up immigration enforcement in Chicago, as it did in Los Angeles, and deploy National Guard troops.

    In addition to sending troops to Los Angeles in June, Trump has deployed them since last month in Washington, as part of his unprecedented law enforcement takeover of the nation’s capital.

    He’s also suggested that Baltimore and New Orleans could get the same treatment, and on Friday even mentioned federal authorities possibly heading for Portland, Oregon, to “wipe ’em out,” meaning protesters. He could have been mistakenly describing video from demonstrations in that city years ago.

    Details about Trump’s promised Chicago operation have been sparse, but there’s already widespread opposition. City and state leaders have said they plan to sue the Trump administration. Pritzker, a possible 2028 presidential candidate, is also fiercely opposed to it.

    The president “is threatening to go to war with an American city,” Pritzker wrote on X over an image of Trump’s post. “This is not a joke. This is not normal.”

    He added: “Donald Trump isn’t a strongman, he’s a scared man. Illinois won’t be intimidated by a wannabe dictator.”

    Trump has suggested that he has nearly limitless powers when it comes to deploying the National Guard. At times he’s even touched on questions about his being a dictator.

    “Most people are saying, ‘If you call him a dictator, if he stops crime, he can be whatever he wants’ — I am not a dictator, by the way,” Trump said last month. He added, “Not that I don’t have — I would — the right to do anything I want to do.”

    “I’m the president of the United States,” Trump said then. “If I think our country is in danger — and it is in danger in these cities — I can do it.”

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  • Trump administration agrees to restore health websites and data

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    NEW YORK — Federal officials have agreed to restore health- and science-related webpages and data under to a lawsuit settlement with doctors groups and other organizations who sued.

    The settlement was announced this week by the lead plaintiffs in the case, the Washington State Medical Association.

    Soon after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, federal health officials deleted or removed information on a range of topics including pregnancy risks, opioid-use disorder and the AIDS epidemic. The move was made in reaction to a Trump executive order that told agencies to stop using the term “gender” in federal policies and documents.

    The administration saw it as a move to end the promotion of “gender ideology.” Doctors, scientists and public health advocates saw it as an “egregious example of government overreach,” says Dr. John Bramhall, the organization’s president, said in a statement.

    “This was trusted health information that vanished in a blink of an eye — resources that, among other things, physicians rely on to manage patients’ health conditions and overall care,” Bramhall said.

    The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has agreed to restore more than 100 websites and resources to the state they were in, said Graham Short, a spokesperson for the Washington State doctors’ group.

    “We expect the sites will be restored in the coming weeks,” Short said in an email.

    The case was filed in federal court in Seattle. The plaintiffs include, among others, the Vermont Medical Society, the Washington State Nurses Association and the International Association of Providers of AIDS Care.

    The defendants included U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and federal health agencies and officials who work under him.

    Federal officials responded to questions about the settlement with this statement: “HHS remains committed to its mission of removing radical gender and DEI ideology from federal programs, subject to applicable law, to ensure taxpayer dollars deliver meaningful results for the American people.”

    The case is similar to one filed in Washington, D.C., by Doctors for America and others against the government. That lawsuit also sought to force the government to restore health information to the public, and the two cases overlapped somewhat in the websites they targeted, Short said.

    In July, a judge in the Doctors for America case ordered restoration of websites. As of last week, 167 of the websites at issue had been restored and 33 were still under review, according to a court filing.

    ___

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Want to work for National Weather Service? Be ready to explain how you agree with Trump

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    As the National Weather Service scrambles to hire up to 450 people to restore deep cuts by the Department of Government Efficiency, potential applicants are being asked to explain how they would advance President Donald Trump’s agenda if hired.

    A posting from the weather service’s parent agency seeking meteorologists asks applicants to identify one or two of Trump’s executive orders “that are significant to you, and explain how you would help implement them if hired.”

    It’s among screening questions added to government job applications as part of a “ merit hiring plan” that Trump announced at the outset of his second term, and it’s not unique to the weather service positions. But some experts said they are alarmed at the prospect that a candidate’s ideology could matter for jobs in science.

    “The fundamental question is, will this make forecasts any better? That’s the job of the weather service,” said Rick Spinrad, who led the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which includes the weather service, under former President Joe Biden.

    “These people should be hired for their knowledge in meteorology or hydrology or information technology or physics — not civics. … Bottom line, I’d rather have a great forecaster who’s never read an EO than a policy muck who’s taken one meteorology class,” he said, referring to executive orders.

    Spokespeople for NOAA didn’t respond to emails seeking comment.

    Before Elon Musk left DOGE, it cut hundreds of NOAA forecasters and other employees soon after Trump took office. Experts warned that the vacancies could hurt forecasts and dangerous consequences for people if extreme weather warnings were slowed.

    NOAA confirmed in early August that it had received approval to hire as many as 450 people for critical positions within the weather service after this spring’s deep cuts.

    Trump has issued numerous executive orders, and applicants could presumably choose any to endorse — or none at all, since the application says responses aren’t required, only encouraged.

    But Trump has consistently attacked clean energy and climate science while promoting fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas and coal, which emit planet-warming gases. One of his first executive orders, which he dubbed “ unleashing American energy,” directed agencies to sweep away any “undue burden” to fossil fuel development. That order also canceled a series of orders from Biden that addressed climate change.

    Under Trump, NOAA has stopped tracking the cost of weather disasters worsened by climate change. His administration has also moved to shut down two NASA missions that monitor a potent greenhouse gas and plant health — data seen as helpful for measuring the impacts of climate change.

    Trump’s second term has been marked by accusations that he has politicized science, most recently with the ouster of the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for not being “aligned” with the president’s agenda. Separately, employees of the Environmental Protection Agency, National Institutes of Health and Federal Emergency Management Agency have issued declarations of dissent with agency actions. Some EPA and FEMA employees who signed those letters were put on leave.

    Another screening question asks applicants how their “commitment to the Constitution and the founding principles of the United States” inspired them to seek the job. A third asks how they would use their skills to improve government efficiency and effectiveness.

    Craig McLean, a former NOAA acting chief scientist under Biden and during Trump’s first term, said none of the questions are relevant to weather service positions. NOAA and the NWS are responsible for daily weather forecasts, severe storm warnings and climate monitoring, among other tasks.

    “Asking a meteorologist to define how they as a new employee, are going to make the government more efficient is ludicrous,” McLean said. “I’d rather understand how well they are prepared to use the forecast tools and make a timely and accurate forecast.”

    Jeff Masters, a meteorologist for Yale Climate Connections and co-founder of Weather Underground, said the questions amount to a loyalty test that will discourage many qualified applicants from applying.

    “Whether or not you support the President’s Executive Orders will not enable a meteorologist to make a better forecast or issue a more timely tornado warning, and should have no place on a job application for the National Weather Service,” Masters said by email.

    ___

    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • Trump says he’ll keep extending TikTok shutdown deadline

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    WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is calling national security and privacy concerns related to TikTok and its Chinese parent company “highly overrated” and said Friday he’ll keep extending the deadline for the popular video-sharing platform until there’s a buyer.

    Congress approved a U.S. ban on TikTok unless its parent company, ByteDance, sold its controlling stake. But Trump has so far extended the deadline three times during his second term — with the next one coming up on Sept. 17.

    “We’re gonna watch the security concerns,” Trump told reporters, but added, “We have buyers, American-buyers,” and “until the complexity of things work out, we just extend a little bit longer.”

    The first extension was through an executive order on Jan. 20, his first day in office, after the platform went dark briefly when a national ban — approved by Congress and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court — took effect. The second was in April, when White House officials believed they were nearing a deal to spin off TikTok into a new company with U.S. ownership that fell apart after China backed out following Trump’s tariff announcement.

    His comments follow the White House starting a TikTok account this week.

    “I used TikTok in the campaign,” Trump said.

    “I’m a fan of TikTok,” he said. “My kids like TikTok. Young people love TikTok. If we could keep it going.”

    As the extensions continue, it appears less and less likely that TikTok will be banned in the U.S. any time soon. The decision to keep TikTok alive through an executive order has received some scrutiny, but the administration has not faced a legal challenge in court — unlike many of Trump’s other executive orders.

    Americans are even more closely divided on what to do about TikTok than they were two years ago.

    A recent Pew Research Center survey found that about one-third of Americans said they supported a TikTok ban, down from 50% in March 2023. Roughly one-third said they would oppose a ban, and a similar percentage said they weren’t sure.

    Among those who said they supported banning the social media platform, about 8 in 10 cited concerns over users’ data security being at risk as a major factor in their decision, according to the report.

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  • Homeless people say they will likely return to sites if California clears them under Newsom’s order

    Homeless people say they will likely return to sites if California clears them under Newsom’s order

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    LOS ANGELES (AP) — Three years ago, Joel Hernandez built a small wooden shack under the 405 freeway cutting through Los Angeles.

    He had the help of a friend who lives in his own shack, just a few steps down the stairs he painstakingly dug out of the dirt hillside and reinforced with wooden planks.

    Hernandez has had similar homes be cleared in homeless encampment sweeps by state or city authorities over the years, so the 62-year-old is taking in stride that his days in his makeshift shelter on state-owned land might be numbered. California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday issued an executive order directing state agencies to start clearing homeless encampments on state land, including lots under freeways.

    “You get used to it,” Hernandez said. “I have to rebuild it every time.”

    Many people living in these encampments echoed a similar sentiment of quiet resignation. Some simply wonder: Where else is there to go?

    The order comes on the heels of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling earlier this summer allowing cities to enforce bans on sleeping outside in public spaces, even if there are no shelter beds available.

    Newsom’s order directs state agencies to act soon and follow the lead of the California Department of Transportation, known as Caltrans, which has removed 11,188 encampments and more than 248,000 cubic yards (189,600 cubic meters) of debris from these encampments along the state rights of way, mostly freeways and highways, since July 2021. Caltrans oversees much of the land under and near the state’s freeways and highways.

    But most of the time, the people living in those encampments return after officials leave.

    “I haven’t found a better place,” said Hernandez, who has been on the waiting list for a shelter for three years. At least in this spot, he lives close to his friends and gets along with most of the people in the encampment, Hernandez said.

    Hernandez and others admit it is not the safest place to live. A recent fire destroyed many of the shelters in the underpass, leaving the underside of the highway blackened and the area scattered with burnt trash, a broken grill, abandoned shopping carts and more.

    Esca Guernon lives next to the freeway further away from the underpass with her dog, Champion. Sometimes people disturb her tent while she is sleeping or steal her belongings. But she always comes back after an encampment sweep.

    “We have to take what we have, like our bikes or something, and we go over there for them to clean up,” said Guernon, pointing across the street. “I come back, because I don’t know where to go.”

    On Friday, an outreach team from Hope the Mission of Van Nuys, California, handed out cold bottles of water and snacks to Guernon and her friend. They will come back in a few days to begin the intake process and get them on the waiting list for a shelter.

    “For us we’re just building our rapport with them,” said Armando Covarrubias, an outreach team leader with the organization. It can take repeated visits for someone to accept their offer of help, he said.

    Covarrubias said Newsom’s executive order does nothing to reduce the population of homeless people, many who have to remain outside while waiting for a shelter bed.

    “It’s not a solution. It’s not fair for them,” Covarrubias said. “This just puts more stress on them.”

    Newsom and supporters of his order, including many businesses, say the encampments cannot be left to exist because they pose health and safety issues both for homeless people and residents who live nearby.

    His executive order is about “getting the sense of urgency that’s required of local government to do their job,” Newsom said.

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  • New York county’s latest trans athlete ban draws lawsuits from attorney general, civil rights group

    New York county’s latest trans athlete ban draws lawsuits from attorney general, civil rights group

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    MINEOLA, N.Y. — The New York attorney general and the New York Civil Liberties Union on Monday sued a county on Long Island over its latest move to ban transgender females from playing on women’s sports teams at county facilities.

    The separate lawsuits came on the same day Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Republican, signed the policy into law. Months earlier, a judge had blocked a similar rule Blakeman put in place through an executive order.

    Both cases argue the ban violates state anti-discrimination laws.

    “With this law, Nassau County is once again attempting to exclude transgender girls and women from participating in sporting events while claiming to support fairness,” Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, said in a statement.

    Blakeman in February signed an executive order to implement the policy but it was eventually blocked by a judge. Then in June, the Nassau County Legislature, which is controlled by Republicans, voted to reinstate the ban.

    The rule would bar trans athletes from playing at facilities owned by the county, unless they compete on teams matching the gender they were assigned at birth or on coed teams. It would apply to about 100 sporting facilities in the county.

    Blakeman said in a statement, “I am very disappointed that the Attorney General would attempt to frustrate Nassau County’s desire to protect the integrity of women’s sports, ensure the safety of its participants and provide a safe environment for girls and women to compete.”

    The New York Civil Liberties Union’s lawsuit was filed on behalf of a women’s roller derby league, the Long Island Roller Rebels, which had successfully sued to block Blakeman’s original executive order.

    “It is abundantly clear that any attempt to ban trans women and girls from sports is prohibited by our state’s antidiscrimination laws. It was true when we successfully struck down County Executive Blakeman’s transphobic policy and it is true now,” Gabriella Larios, staff attorney at the New York Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement.

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